Marine fuels & bunkers
Compliant and fit for purpose are two different tests.
VLSFO, HSFO, ULSFO and distillates to ISO 8217:2024, plus FAME and HVO blends — supplied as seaborne cargo parcels into a buyer's terminal, with the stability and compatibility questions settled before the parcel is fixed rather than after it is commingled.
The desk
"0.50% sulphur" is a legal limit. It is not a specification.
Since 2020 the whole market has learned to quote a number that describes almost nothing about the fuel. A cargo at 0.49 % m/m sulphur is compliant with MARPOL Annex VI. Whether it is stable, whether it will sit in a tank alongside the last parcel without dropping asphaltenes, and whether its cat fines will survive the purifiers are separate questions with separate tests.
Most VLSFO problems are not sulphur problems. They are blend problems — a compliant fuel assembled from streams that were never intended to live together, meeting every table limit and still failing in service. That is what a Certificate of Quality against the governing table does and does not tell you, and it is the first thing we put on an offer.
So we quote against the table and the edition, name the test methods, and raise stability and compatibility at enquiry. Where a parcel is marginal against a limit, or where we would not want it commingled with what is already in your tank, we say so before it is fixed.
The standard
ISO 8217:2024 rebuilt the tables. Name the edition.
The seventh edition restructured the standard around what the market actually buys. There are now four tables rather than two, and a grade name alone no longer tells you which one governs — so a contract that says "RMG 380 to ISO 8217" without an edition has left something open.
| Table | Covers | Grades | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Table 1 | Distillates and bio-distillates | DM grades; new DF grades | DF grades admit FAME up to 100 %. FAME content and net heat of combustion become reportable. |
| Table 2 | Low-sulphur residual — the VLSFO and ULSFO category | RM grades at 0.10 % and 0.50 % | New table. Recognises formally what the market has traded since 2020, with expanded stability requirements and mandatory reporting. |
| Table 3 | Bio-residual | New RF grades | New table. FAME up to 100 %, with FAME content and energy content reported and enhanced stability parameters. |
| Table 4 | High-sulphur residual — above 0.50 % | RM grades | Fewer grades than the 2017 edition. A de minimis FAME allowance is retained. |
Grades
What we supply.
VLSFO — very low sulphur fuel oil, 0.50 % max
The global workhorse since the 2020 cap, and now formally a Table 2 low-sulphur residual grade. Traded predominantly as RMG 380 and RMK 500 equivalents, though viscosity in the delivered product often sits far below the grade ceiling because of how these fuels are blended.
VLSFO is not one product. It is a family of blends — hydrocracker bottoms, low-sulphur straight-run residues, visbroken material and distillate cutter stock in varying proportions depending on refinery and region. Two parcels that both certify as RMG 380 at 0.45 % sulphur can behave completely differently in a tank. That is a commercial fact before it is a technical one, and it drives everything in the stability section below.
- Governing table
- ISO 8217:2024 Table 2, 0.50 % sulphur category. We state the edition and table on the offer; where a buyer's contract still cites the 2017 edition we quote to that and say so.
- Sulphur
- 0.50 % m/m maximum for MARPOL Annex VI Regulation 14 outside emission control areas. Cargoes are routinely offered at a tighter guaranteed maximum to leave commingling headroom.
- Parameters that decide service behaviour
- Total sediment (potential and accelerated), aluminium plus silicon, CCAI, pour point, water, ash and micro carbon residue — not sulphur.
- Typical parcel
- Seaborne parcels into a buyer's shore tank; size and stowage set by the receiving terminal rather than by us.
HSFO — high sulphur fuel oil
Above 0.50 % sulphur, under Table 4. Lawful as a marine fuel only for tonnage fitted with an approved exhaust gas cleaning system, and subject to the carriage ban for everyone else — a ship without a scrubber may not carry it for use as fuel at all, regardless of whether it burns it.
Commercially it remains a real market, and a more stable product than VLSFO in most respects: the blending is conventional, the compatibility history is decades deep, and the failure modes are well understood. The regulatory exposure sits with the scrubber and its washwater, not with the fuel.
- Governing table
- ISO 8217:2024 Table 4. Grade count is reduced against the 2017 edition, so confirm the grade still exists in the edition your contract cites.
- Typical grades
- RMG 380 and RMK 500 equivalents at 3.5 % m/m maximum sulphur.
- Buyer's own constraint
- Washwater discharge is restricted or banned in a growing list of ports and coastal states. That is the buyer's operational question, and it changes the value of the cargo — we will raise it, we will not advise on it.
- Where we decline
- We do not offer HSFO into a chain where the intended end use appears to be non-compliant burning. Origin and counterparty screening applies as it does across the book — see Compliance.
ULSFO — ultra low sulphur fuel oil, 0.10 % max
The residual grade for emission control areas, now sitting alongside VLSFO in Table 2 at the 0.10 % sulphur limit. It exists because a ship inside an ECA needs a 0.10 % fuel and an owner may not want to run distillate through machinery configured for residual.
ULSFO is the most blend-sensitive product on this page. Getting to 0.10 % sulphur in a residual matrix leaves very little formulation freedom, and cold flow properties — pour point and wax — are where these fuels most often cause trouble. The 2024 edition's removal of seasonal pour point limits matters here more than anywhere else.
- Governing table
- ISO 8217:2024 Table 2, 0.10 % sulphur category.
- Where it is required
- Inside the emission control areas listed in the sulphur section below, unless the ship is running an approved equivalent.
- Watch
- Pour point against the destination's ambient and the receiving tank's heating capability. A parcel that is fine in the Gulf can be a solid problem in the Baltic in February.
Marine distillates — MGO, LSMGO and MDO
Table 1 grades. DMA is the clean distillate the market calls MGO; DMZ is the same with a higher minimum viscosity for engines that need it; DMB is the blended grade generally sold as MDO and may carry trace residual. LSMGO is simply DMA held to 0.10 % sulphur for ECA use.
Distillates avoid almost every stability problem on this page. They bring their own: microbial growth in the presence of water, cold flow in the DMB grades, and lubricity — which matters more as sulphur comes down, because the sulphur compounds that used to protect fuel pumps are no longer there.
- Grades
- DMA, DMZ, DMB to ISO 8217:2024 Table 1. LSMGO at 0.10 % m/m for ECA service.
- Key parameters
- Viscosity at 40 °C, flash point 60 °C minimum, pour point, cloud point and CFPP, water and sediment, oxidation stability, lubricity and cetane index.
- Note on DMB
- Because DMB permits trace residual, it is not interchangeable with DMA in machinery or in a claim. Contracts that say "MGO" without a grade have not specified a product.
Bio-blends — FAME and HVO
The 2024 edition made this a first-class category rather than a footnote. DF grades are bio-distillates and RF grades bio-residuals, both admitting FAME up to 100 %, with FAME content and net heat of combustion reported on the certificate. In practice the market trades B24 and B30 — 24 % and 30 % FAME by volume — because those are what the major bunkering hubs have standardised on.
Two things follow. Energy content falls as the bio fraction rises, so a tonne of B30 is not a tonne of VLSFO in the fuel-consumption sense, and that has to be priced rather than discovered. And FAME brings oxidation stability, water affinity and microbial growth issues that residual fuel does not have — which is why the new tables require the stability parameters they do.
HVO is a different animal: a hydrotreated paraffinic product that behaves like a premium distillate rather than an ester, without FAME's stability drawbacks, at a price that reflects that.
- Governing tables
- ISO 8217:2024 Table 1 for DF grades, Table 3 for RF grades. FAME content is stated, not assumed.
- Common blends
- B24 and B30 against a VLSFO or distillate base; HVO neat or as a blend component.
- What must travel with it
- Where the bio fraction is to be counted for a compliance obligation, it needs a Proof of Sustainability under a recognised scheme. A blend certificate is not a sustainability claim — see Certified co-processed components for how we handle that documentation set.
- Straight answer
- We will tell you where a blend's declared bio share will not do what your FuelEU calculation needs it to do, rather than sell you the litres and let the auditor find it.
LNG, methanol and ammonia
These sit outside ISO 8217 entirely, with their own specifications, their own bunkering standards and their own supply chains. We trade LNG and methanol as products in their own right rather than as marine fuels — see LNG and Methanol — and a marine buyer is welcome to take a parcel on that basis.
On ammonia we will be direct: as a marine fuel it is early, the toxicity and handling regime is unlike anything else on this page, and the bunkering infrastructure barely exists. We are not going to present it as an available marine fuel offer when it is not one.
- LNG
- Traded as a cargo. Marine use brings methane slip into the FuelEU and future IMO calculation, which changes the arithmetic materially against the headline CO2 saving.
- Methanol
- Traded as a cargo. Grey, bio- and e-methanol are the same molecule with very different compliance value — the certification, not the specification, is what differs.
- Ammonia
- Not offered as a marine fuel. If you need ammonia as a commodity, that is a different conversation and a different desk.
The real risk
Two compliant fuels can ruin each other.
This is the section that matters. Almost every serious VLSFO incident since 2020 has been a stability or compatibility failure in a fuel that passed its certificate — and the damage is done in the receiving tank, after the cargo has been accepted.
| Failure mode | What happens | What it is measured by | What we do about it before fixing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asphaltene incompatibility | An aromatic, asphaltene-bearing fuel meets a paraffinic one; the asphaltenes drop out as heavy sludge, blinding filters and overloading purifiers within hours of commingling | Total sediment potential and accelerated (TSP / TSA); spot-test compatibility on the actual two fuels | Establish what is already in the receiving tank and, where the risk is real, recommend segregation or a compatibility test on the specific pair rather than relying on both certificates |
| Cat fines | Aluminium and silicon catalyst particles from refinery cracking units act as an abrasive, scoring liners, rings and fuel pumps; damage is cumulative and irreversible | Aluminium plus silicon, as a combined limit | Guarantee against the table limit, and flag that the limit is a cargo limit — the buyer's own purifier throughput decides what actually reaches the engine |
| Cold flow | Wax drops out in cold ambient or an unheated line; the fuel will not pump, and heating it after the fact does not always fully reverse it | Pour point, cloud point, cold filter plugging point — now year-round limits in the 2024 edition | Match the parcel to the destination's ambient and the receiving tank's heating, and say plainly when a grade is wrong for the season |
| Ignition and combustion quality | Poor ignition delay characteristics cause knocking, late burn, liner wear and, in bad cases, cracked pistons | CCAI, calculated from density and viscosity; ignition quality is inferred rather than measured directly | Report CCAI and note where it sits against the engine builder's tolerance rather than only against the standard |
| Bio-blend instability | FAME oxidises, holds water, and supports microbial growth; the product degrades in storage in a way petroleum residual does not | Oxidation stability, water, FAME content, acid number | State FAME content and turnover assumptions, and advise against long storage of high-FAME blends |
| Chemical contamination | Waste or off-spec chemical streams blended into fuel oil — the 2018 Houston and 2022 Singapore episodes both passed conventional specification testing | GC-MS screening beyond the ISO 8217 table; the standard's general clause on materials deleterious to the engine | Screening beyond the table where origin or price suggests it is warranted, and declining the parcel where it is not explicable |
Sulphur
Where a ship may burn what.
MARPOL Annex VI Regulation 14 sets a global cap of 0.50 % m/m and a 0.10 % limit inside emission control areas. The ECA map has grown recently and is still growing, which changes the grade a buyer needs on a given trade.
| Area | Type | 0.10 % sulphur limit from |
|---|---|---|
| Baltic Sea | SOx and NOx | In force |
| North Sea | SOx and NOx | In force |
| North American | SOx and NOx | 2015 |
| United States Caribbean Sea | SOx and NOx | In force |
| Mediterranean Sea | SOx | 1 May 2025 |
| Norwegian Sea, North-East Atlantic, Canadian Arctic | SOx and NOx | Expected 2027 — confirm current status before fixing against it |
The carriage ban
A ship without an approved exhaust gas cleaning system may not carry fuel above 0.50 % for use as fuel — not merely refrain from burning it. This is a cargo question as much as an operational one.
Equivalents
A scrubber is an approved equivalent to compliant fuel, not an exemption from the regime. Washwater discharge restrictions in individual ports and coastal states sit on top of it.
Non-availability
Where compliant fuel genuinely cannot be obtained, the FONAR regime exists. It is a report, not a defence, and port state control treats it accordingly.
Sulphur headroom
A cargo bought at the limit leaves no room for commingling. Buyers who blend downstream generally specify a tighter guaranteed maximum, and we price that as the different product it is.
NOx is separate
Tier III NOx requirements attach to the engine and its build date within designated areas, not to the fuel. Nothing on this page discharges them.
What we confirm
Whether the grade in your enquiry is the grade your intended trade actually requires, before rather than after the parcel is fixed.
Carbon & compliance
The global scheme slipped. The European ones did not.
The IMO Net-Zero Framework — a GHG fuel intensity standard combined with a pricing and reward mechanism — was not adopted. At the second extraordinary MEPC session in October 2025 member states voted 57 to 49 to adjourn for a year. Talks resume in October 2026 and the earliest possible entry into force is now 1 March 2028.
Meanwhile the European regime is live and biting, which means the compliance cost sitting on a marine fuel decision today is a European one. Both instruments cover ships above 5,000 gross tonnage, and both count 100 % of energy or emissions on intra-EU and EEA voyages and port calls, and 50 % on voyages into or out of the area.
| From | FuelEU Maritime — GHG intensity reduction vs 91.16 gCO2e/MJ |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 % |
| 2030 | 6 % |
| 2035 | 14.5 % |
| 2040 | 31 % |
| 2045 | 62 % |
| 2050 | 80 % |
Well-to-wake, not stack
FuelEU measures intensity on a well-to-wake basis, which is why a fuel's certification chain matters as much as its combustion properties. It also captures methane and nitrous oxide, not only CO2.
Pooling, banking, borrowing
Surpluses can be pooled across vessels or banked forward; a deficit can be borrowed against next year at a 1.1 multiplier, capped at 2 % and not in consecutive periods. These are the levers owners actually pull.
The RFNBO trigger
If renewable fuels of non-biological origin account for under 1 % of energy in the 2031 monitoring year, a 2 % sub-target becomes mandatory from 1 January 2034.
EU ETS runs alongside
Maritime emissions were phased into the EU Emissions Trading System from 2024 and are now at full surrender. It is a separate obligation with separate accounting — meeting one does not discharge the other.
Shore power
Container and passenger ships must connect to onshore power at AFIR-designated ports from 1 January 2030, and at other covered ports from 2035.
Our position
We do not run your compliance calculation. We will tell you plainly what a fuel's certification does and does not contribute to a given obligation, which is a narrower and more useful claim.
Scope
We sell the cargo. We do not bunker your ship.
This page is headed "marine fuels and bunkers" because that is what the product is called. It is not an offer to deliver bunkers. We supply seaborne cargo parcels — FOB, CFR, CIF and delivered — into a buyer's nominated terminal or shore tank. We do not operate barges, we hold no bunker licence, and we do not deliver into a ship's tanks.
The distinction is worth being blunt about, because the two businesses look similar from outside and share almost nothing operationally. A physical bunker supply carries a Bunker Delivery Note, a MARPOL sample drawn at the receiving ship's manifold, a licence in the port, barge availability and a whole claims regime built around quantity disputes at the ship's side. None of that is us. Our cargo enters your chain at the quality determination point named in the contract, and the bunkering that happens afterwards belongs to whoever holds the licence for it.
So the boundary goes in writing before the parcel is fixed: sampling point, quality determination point, inspection agency, and the moment risk and quality responsibility transfer.
- What we do
- Source, screen, fix and deliver cargo parcels against a named ISO 8217 table and edition, with independent inspection and a full documentary set.
- What we do not do
- Physical bunker supply, barge operation, ex-wharf or ex-pipe delivery into ships, Bunker Delivery Notes, MARPOL samples at a ship's manifold, or bunker broking.
- What we will confirm
- Whether the receiving terminal you have nominated can take the grade, in the stowage and on the timeline proposed — and what is already in the tank it is going into.
- If bunkers are what you need
- Then we are not your counterparty for that leg, and saying so early is worth more than a quotation you cannot use.
How to specify
Six lines get you a firm offer.
Marine fuel enquiries usually arrive as a grade, a tonnage and a port. These six lines let a trader come back with a number instead of a question — and the sixth is the one nobody sends.
Grade, table and edition
Not "RMG 380" — RMG 380 to ISO 8217:2024 Table 2 at 0.50 % max, or to the 2017 edition if that is what your contract fixes.
Guaranteed sulphur maximum
The limit, or tighter. If you intend to blend downstream, say so — the headroom you need is part of the specification.
Quantity, parcel size and basis
Tonnes, FOB / CFR / CIF / delivered, and whether this is one parcel or a term programme with a monthly lifting.
Discharge terminal and stowage
Heating capability, segregation, and the ambient the parcel will sit in. This is what decides whether a grade is right, not price.
Inspection and quality determination point
Which agency, at which point, on whose account. If you have no preference we will propose one and explain why.
What is already in the tank
The last parcel's certificate, or at least its origin and blend character. This is the single most useful thing you can send us and the thing we are almost never sent.
Quality
Tested by someone with no interest in the outcome.
Every parcel is offered against a Certificate of Quality reporting the parameters of the governing ISO 8217 table, with inspection by an independent agency appointed for the cargo — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly and sampling under supervision at a point both sides agreed in advance.
Fuel oil is the product where that matters most, because it is the product most easily changed between the refinery gate and the discharge port. Blending is legitimate and routine; that is exactly why the sampling point and the quality determination point have to be named in the contract rather than assumed.
- Core test set
- Density at 15 °C, kinematic viscosity at 50 °C (or 40 °C for distillates), sulphur, flash point, pour point, water, ash, micro carbon residue, total sediment potential and accelerated, aluminium plus silicon, vanadium, sodium, and CCAI by calculation.
- Where we test beyond the table
- GC-MS screening for chemical contaminants where origin, price or blend history warrants it. ISO 8217's general requirement that a fuel be free of material deleterious to the engine is not satisfied by the numeric table alone.
- Bio-blend additions
- FAME content, net heat of combustion, oxidation stability and acid number, plus the sustainability documentation where the bio share is to be claimed.
- Retained samples
- Sealed retains held against the parcel, so a later dispute is settled on the fuel rather than on correspondence.
- Documentation per parcel
- Certificate of Quality, Certificate of Quantity, Certificate of Origin, Safety Data Sheet under REACH / CLP or GHS in the destination language, bill of lading, and independent inspection report.
- What we do not issue
- Bunker Delivery Notes and MARPOL Annex VI retained samples. Those belong to a physical bunker delivery, which is not what this is.
Straight answer
What we will tell you before you ask.
- That we are not a bunker supplier
- We sell cargoes into terminals. No barges, no licence, no Bunker Delivery Note, and we will not let a proposal imply otherwise.
- Where a compliant fuel is still the wrong fuel
- If a parcel meets the table but should not go into the tank you are putting it in, we will say so and quote what should. A compatibility failure costs more than the margin on the cargo.
- Where a grade is wrong for the season or the trade
- Pour point against destination ambient, and 0.50 % against a trade that runs through an ECA. Both are avoidable at enquiry and expensive afterwards.
- Where a certificate does not prove what it appears to
- A table pass is not a fitness-for-purpose warranty, a typicals sheet proves nothing, and a load-port certificate says nothing about what a cargo became in transit.
- Where an origin cannot be cleared
- Residual fuel oil attracts more sanctions and blending-origin risk than any other product on our book. Origin and counterparty are screened per consignment before we quote, and where it cannot be cleared we decline rather than structure around it — see Compliance.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.